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Horst Bandel's Black Pumpernickel

Horst Bandel's Black Pumpernickel

Horst Bandel's Black Pumpernickel

Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread – a Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes is highly esteemed by TFL members. Which of his formulas is most commonly baked is unknown, although the Vermont Sourdough would be my guess, especially if you include SusanFNP's “Norwich Sourdough” version of it. There is little question regarding which of his several stories from the bakery is the favorite. It has to be the story of Horst Bandel's Black Pumpernickel, found on page 221 of my printing. This tale has an almost mythic quality that truly touches the heart, as it says so much about the age in which we live, the culture of the artisan baker and the character of the pastor, Horst Bandel, and that of Mr. Hamelman himself.

Hamelman's “Home” formula for this bread makes 3 lb, 12 oz of dough. The bread is to be baked in a covered Pullman/Pain de Mie pan. Hamelman specifies 4.4 lbs of dough for the most common (13 x 4 x 4 inch) size Pullman pan, so the formula needs to be re-calculated accordingly. I decided to bake in a 9 x 4 x 4 inch Pullman Pan, which I figured would take 3 lbs of dough. The weights in the following tables are for a quantity of dough just under this.

Overall Formula

Wt (g)

Baker's %

Rye meal (pumpernickel flour)

206

30

Rye berries

137

20

Rye chops

172

25

High-gluten flour

172

25

Old bread (altus)

137

20

Water

481

70

Yeast (instant)

4.6

1.3

Salt

14

2

Molasses, blackstrap

27

4

Total

1350.6

197.3

Sourdough

Wt (g)

Baker's %

Rye meal

206

100

Water

206

100

Mature sourdough culture

10

5

Total

422

205

Note: I used KAF Pumpernickel flour.

Rye-Berry Soaker

Wt (g)

Rye berries

137

Water

Enough

Total

137

Old Bread Soaker

Wt (g)

Old bread (altus)

137

Water

Enough

Total

137

Note: I used Hamelman's “80 percent Rye with a Rye-Flour Soaker” as altus. I did the soaking the day before the bake, wrung out the altus, saving the water, and refrigerated them. I believe it was George Greenstein from whom I learned that altus will keep refrigerated for a few days.

Final dough

Wt (g)

Sourdough

412

Rye berry soaker

137

Rye chops

172

High-gluten flour

172

Old bread (altus) soaker

137

Water

275

Yeast (instant)

4.6

Salt

14

Molasses, blackstrap

27

Total

1350.6

Note: I made the rye chops by coarsely grinding rye berries with the grain mill attachment to a KitchenAid mixer.

Procedures

This bread has multiple components, and the sourdough and the two soakers require advance preparation. Counting the minimum rest time between baking and eating, the procedures can easily stretch over 4 days. They did for me. I weighed out the ingredients and fed my starter on Day 1, milled the grain, made the altus, fed the sourdough and soaked the soaker on Day 2, mixed and baked the bread on Day 3 and 4 (overnight) and let the bread rest on Day 4.

The procedures as listed below assume you have already gathered the ingredients and have a mature sourdough culture. Where my procedures deviated from those specified by Mr. Hamelman, I have added parenthetical comments or notes.

Feed the sourdough and ripen it for 14-16 hours at 70ºF.

Soak the whole rye berries overnight. The next day, boil them in about 3 times their volume of water until they are soft and pliable, about an hour.

Cut the “old bread” into cubes, crust and all, cover in hot water and let soak for at least 4 hours. Squeeze out as much water as possible, and reserve the water for use, if needed, in the final dough. The bread can be sliced, dried and browned in the oven before soaking, which Hamelman says provides a “deeper flavor.”

Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl or the bowl of a mixer. Hamelman says to not add the reserved altus soaker water unless needed, but it is not clear whether the Final Dough water includes this or not. The dough description is “medium consistency but not wet, and it will be slightly sticky.” Mix at Speed 1 for 10 minutes. DDT is 82-84ºF. (I mixed the dough for about a minute with the paddle without adding any additional water. The ingredients mixed well and formed a ball on the paddle. I felt the dough was about the right consistency, but I did add 10 g of the altus water. I then attempted to mix with the dough hook. The dough just went to the side of the bowl, leaving the hook spinning without grabbing the dough. After about 5 minutes of this, with multiple scrape-downs of the dough, I gave up. I tried kneading on a floured board with little effect. This was the stickiest dough I've ever encountered. I finally formed it into a ball and placed it in an oiled batter pitcher.)

Ferment in bulk for 30 minutes.

Prepare your pullman pan by lightly oiling the inside, including the lid, and dusting with whole rye or pumpernickel flour. (I'm not sure this was necessary, since my pan is “non-stick.”)

Form the dough into a cylindrical log and place in the pan. Slide the lid onto the pan.

Proof for 50-60 minutes at 80ºF.

Pre-heat the oven to 350ºF. If you have a baking stone, pre-heat it, too. You will be doing most of the bake with the oven turned off. The baking stone will act as a heat buffer, so the oven temperature falls more slowly.

When the dough has risen to within about ¾ inches from the top of the pan, place it in the oven, covered.

Bake at 350ºF for one hour. Then, turn the oven down to 275ºF, and bake for another 3-4 hours. Then, turn the oven off, and let the bread continue to bake for another 8-12 hours. The range of times given is due to the variability in ovens, specifically how well they retain heat, and how quickly their temperature falls once they are turned off. Hamelman says, “You will know when this bread is baked: The aroma will fill the entire room.” (The aroma of the baking bread was very present 2 hours into the bake. At about 4 hours into the bake, I turned the oven off. The next morning, the aroma in the room was not discernible. When I took the pan out of the oven, it was still warm, but not so hot I couldn't hold it in my bare hands. When I opened the pan, the bread was very aromatic, with the molasses smelling most strongly but the rye very much there as well.)

When the bread is baked, remove it from the pan, and let it cool completely. It should then be wrapped in baker's linen and let rest for a minimum of 24 hours before slicing.

As you can see from the domed top of the loaf, it did not spring enough to fill the pan. I don't know if there was not enough dough, not enough water or whether it was inadequately mixed or proofed. Comments on this would be more than welcome.

Addendum: I sliced the pumpernickel about 36 hours after it was baked. It was very firm and sliced well into thin slices without any of the crumbling I feared. The crust is very chewy. The crumb was moist but extremely dense. The flavor was molasses and rye - very strong flavors.

Discussion and comments by more experienced pumpernickel bakers convinced me that I should have added much more water to the dough, but this bread is not bad as baked. Here are a couple crumb photos:

Comments

I've been waiting for you to get around to this this one David. Smells marvelous while it's baking doesn't it?

Off the top of my head I'd say that hydration and mixing might be the reasons for the domed top. I'm confident that your scaling would be right on the money so it's probably not dough weight. From what I learned in my one attempt at this bread so far, trying to find a workable balance between having a well hydrated dough and one that you can work to some sort of development is the real challenge. The dough, as you note, is extremely sticky, and without a doubt the stickiest dough I've ever worked with as well. Hopefully Andy will have some time to comment on it since he's really our resident expert on this bread, but there's my two cents worth till then. I think it looks good David, nice colour, and the corners are square which is always a good sign in a pan bread. Looking forward to the crumb shot and tasting notes. Nice work!

I can hardly believe how long I've waited to make this bread myself. I've been somewhat in awe of it.

As you say, the smell was amazing.

I hope it's good, of course, but, even though the dough consistency matched my understanding of what it is supposed to be like, I do fear I should have added more of the water. I should have sought advice in advance, probably.

I'm also hoping for comments from Andy, txfarmer, MiniO and the others who have more experience than I with the Horst Bandel Pumpernickel or similar breads.

Andy, txfarmer, MiniO will no doubt all have valuable advice for you on the HB, but this I think is one of those breads that isn't easily solved, because of the variables in flour,water and ovens that we all have. As bullet proof as Hamelman's recipes normally are, it's the one Hamelman formula I've used that I feel the baker needs to make some significant adjustments to, depending on the ingredients/equipment you have on hand to work with.The next mix I do of the HB I'll be going for more of a thick batter, rather than a light paste type of dough, with an even longer bake profile than indicated. The impression I had when I made this dough is that it was more like making a single stage cake than it was a bread, from anything I've had experience with so far, and a bread that will take some careful refining for us to get what Hamelman intends as a finished product.

but the best I can come up with is Wow! I can hardly wait for the second chapter.

I do have a procedural question, David. Are the rye chops mixed directly into the dough in their dry state? I had expected that they would also be soaked before use but didn't notice any mention of that. Or did I just miss something that should have been intuitively obvious to the most casual of bystanders? (It's a natural talent of mine.)

The other point of curiosity is the rationale (whether Mr. Bandel's or Mr. Hamelman's) for including molasses in the formula. It seems contrary to the notion that most of a "black" bread's coloring comes from the natural caramelization that occurs during the extended bake. You noted the predominance of the molasses' fragrance; I wonder how much effect it has on either the color or the flavor?

This is on my list of breads to bake but I think that I will wait until I get back to the States to tackle it.

What a co-incident, I made sourdough corn bread with old bread last week as well. However, I turned old bread into bread crumbs and mix it straight into the dough. By using old bread, it did improve the flavour, I believe.

Looking at your recipe using old bread in the soaker, I am wondering what the difference it would make using soaker. I will have to try it this way sometimes. What kind of old bread you used? Any old bread you have available or only ones that match the bread profile?

The problem with this bread for me is that I don't have a good reference for how it should look and taste. There are a wide range of possibilities in outcomes depending on the hydration, yeast activity and baking profile. I like a good solid, waxy pumpernickel that I get from a local German market here in Milwaukee. I like the Pullman loaves I have made from this formula when I have baked the loaf in a pan of steaming water. I have not cared for the hard crusty outer portions of bread baked per the recipe specified in Bread. We end up trimming the crust off and eating the crumb. I have come to the conclusion I like this mix done as an English pudding style bread, slowly baked in steam.

Since this has reportedly been a popular bread at the bakery in Vermont, it would be helpful if someone who lives near would buy a loaf and do a review on it. I would love to see one from the King Arthur Bakery.

Looking forward to your crumb and tasting notes David. I think you will enjoy the crumb for sure.

Tell me more about the steaming. I've read your discussion with Andy about this, but it seems to me that the pullman pan seals tight enough that the steam would have little impact except to lower the effective temperature, perhaps.

I share your disadvantage having never eaten the "target" bread, from KA's bakery or elsewhere.

Now about not filling the pan, I struggled with that for quite a while until I discovered that the 4.4lb suggested in the book is for a 3.75X3.75X13, NOT 4X4X13(which is what I have), after scaling it up by 10%, the bread filled my pan with no problem. That means for your 4X4X9 pan, you need 76% of the 4.4LB dough, which comes out to be 3.34LB, 10% more than the 3LB you are using time. Trust me, this 10% will make a difference! :)

Regarding the loaf not reaching the top of the tin: you should take good note of txfarmer in that she is right that 10% will make a difference; it surely will!

However, I note that you used some instant yeast in the formula, which is not really necessary if your sour is truly active, and your paste of correct temperature and consistency. Without that extra kick from the yeast, your HB may well have struggled to reach the top of the tin, even with the 10% accounted for.

I believe Franko has pretty much worked this out right at the start of the thread. Your description of mixing really does give away many clues, and I am sure your "dough" was short of water. I am aware of a recent discussion centering on "hydration neutral" which involved contributions from yourself and proth. I don't want to return to that discussion, but would point out that the absorption power of the cooked wholegrain and the altus are important aspects of the formula. I did monitor this fairly closely and recorded it in a post here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/17254/horst-bandel039s-balck-pumpernickel

You will note the Hamelman formula uses rye berries and old bread with water "as needed", but then takes no account of the water required in these particular soakers. So, this is where Franko is correct. Hamelman's formula includes hydration at 70% only. I reckon there is an extra 15% of water to be had in these soakers.

The real lesson to take away on texture is that there is no reason to create a "dough". Your description suggests your mix is too tight. I would never think to use a hook when mixing with rye at this level. The wheatflour in the formula is just giving a small amount of "glue". But rye is about pentosans, not chains of elastic proteins....and pentosans need water. In fact, my preferred descriptor is "paste", not dough.

So, simple: up the water in the formula and you will have a better mix, which needs paddle only. Hamelman says himself that there is little to develop when rye flour is such a high proportion of the grist.

A little wondering in me asks why you have used the "home" recipe set out in Imperial by the author, and then converted it to metric? Given that the book was written for professional bakers in the first instance, why not use the metric recipe he gives, and scale this down to the required quantity wanted? That is my constant tactic with Hamelman formulae when baking at home, and it is so easy to then convert this to meaningful bakers % too.

The best way to cook this loaf is, as Eric suggests. 16 hours of steaming at 100*C will result in perfection. Eric and I came to the same view about the hard crust on the outside: love the colour, but it's not good to eat. This is a good guide to the type of oven I have available in College to cook these loaves: http://www.kcmltd.com/rational_combimaster.shtml I have to do them overnight, and then deal with them when I get to work next day. Not ideal, but the finished loaf is dark, without an over challenging crust.

I was (and am) confused by Hamelman's description of the desired dough consistency. I went with my interpretation of his description rather than the formula-prescribed amounts of water. I'll definitely go with your advice next time.

I actually did my calculations from the baker's percentages and chose the dough quantity based on the ratio of volumes of a full-sized pullman pan to my 9 inch pan. As txfarmer, pointed out, Hamelman's pan is 13 x 3.75 x 3.75. I assumed (incorrectly) that it was 13 x 4 x 4 inches. Correcting this error, as she did eventually, should give me a full pan at the end of the bake.

I have a large covered roaster that should accommodate either my large or small pullman pan for steaming. I still don't understand the effect of steaming, as I doubt the steam would get into the pan with its tight-fitting lid.

Do I understand you to recommend baking for 16 hours at 100ºC, rather than starting hotter and gradually reducing the oven temperature?

I'm going for a walk with my wife, then I'll slice the pumpernickel, and we'll see if it's edible or I've made a 3 lb loaf of future altus.

I have been making a very similar bread for some time. I find that around 85% hydration works well (not counting water used to soak any seeds which I soak at 100% hydration, often with home-brewed stout).

Another Bavarian addition (thanks to Bavarian neighbour): fennel, anise and coriander, which I grind with the flour.

I have been using various combinations of 100% Rye, 100% Spelt, 100% WW and blends. WW has more gluten structure and rises better (obviously), but Rye rises well too with high hydration because basically you are baking a sponge of sorts.

My recipe in general is:

Using a Nutrimill I grind about 30% fine with the spices and then the rest as coarse as possible.

Hydration is 83%, 75% for Spelt.

Spices: .13% each spice

Seeds: 5% but could be more. (I have mainly been using Sunflower, Flax and Pumpkin).

I like very simple approaches since I bake in wood-fired brick oven so try to keep everything else simple without too many very tight/precise timing issues, complicated multi-stage recipes etc. So:

Day One AM:

a) build up starter from fridge, usually 3-4 times what it starts with, i.e. 250 g starter used to make 1000 g sponge. I tend to favour rye starters but spelt ones make very fruity/winy/frothy starters. Target starter amount is 12% of total pre-bake recipe weight by volume, i.e. if total pre-bake volume is 1000g then starter is 120g. My starters are always at 100% hydration to keep calculations simple. (With 120g starter = 880g for remaining flour, water and other ingredients. Hydration calculations include water and flour from starter though I ignore water in the seeds to keep things simple.) If temp is much hotter or cooler than usual I adjust starter amount to help with timing, i.e. if summer time I reduce starter amount or lessen from beginning to bake time etc.

b) grind flour and add in salt (1.8%), optional brewer's malt (0.15%), Vitamin C(.075%) but not necessary, and water. I soak the seeds separately in part beer part water adding in same weight of water as seeds (5%). So basically whilst the starter is building up, the grains are soaking. Mixing is just to get water and flour/grain mixed, no kneading.

Time: 9.00 am to about 6.00 pm for that initial build.

Day One PM around 6-7pm (i.e. initial build is about 10 hours or until a nice sponge - if rye - built up with good sour flavour but necessarily super-done):

Mix nice, aromatic starter-sponge and seeds into soaked flour and salt. Ferment overnight. This recipe assumes things cool down overnight starting about 70F, cooling to about 50-55 or so, then warming up again in the am because that's my typical situation. You might have to adjust but I don't think it makes that much difference as long as it gets enough time to really ferment well and begin to rise up just like a starter sponge would do over time.

Day Two Bake Day: around 10-12 am, or 4-6 hours before baking, pour wet, fermenting gloop into loafpans. I use a soup ladle myself to reduce mess. If doing very small batches probably can begin the whole thing in loaf pans though maybe it would rise too much depending on how much is in there. I find that filling them about 2/3rds is about right. The gloop will rise in a warm room (above 60F but better 75-ish of course). They often rise above the top of the baking pan but can't go much higher being so gloopy - especially 100% rye mixes. Spelt and wheat can hold their body a bit more.

Then Bake.

I find this very easy to do.

Summary: Basically, starting in the morning you grind and soak the flour, water and salt, soaking seeds also on the side, whilst letting initial starter build up to 12% of the total recipe; then in the evening you mix in the starter and seeds, then ferment overnight, then ladle into loaf pans, then bake around 5 pm-ish.

I have been getting consistently excellent results from this. I am sure all the additions in the page above including old bread, molasses and so forth will give richer flavours and so on, but the reason I offer this is because it is essentially VERY simple. The taste of the grains comes through delightfully but also it is easy to play with different temperatures, hydrations, starter strengths, flour grinds etc. to come up with what you find works best but more importantly understand what you are doing with this type of whole-grain course-ground or soaked/boiled whole grain approach which is not the same as getting nice puffy loaves from finely-milled flours.

These breads are seriously delicious, no doubt highly nutritious, and basically extremely easy to make with far less emphasis on timing, shaping and so forth.

I was just curious if you've ever calculated the fiber to total carbohydrate ratio for this loaf. I heard the real pumpernickel like this is supposed to be the best bread for diabetics. Would be nice if it was 25% or more fiber!

I just purchased Hamelman's book and can't wait to get it. I make a nice loaf of white flour sourdough and am really looking forward to making this bread.

I have had success in my first two bakes of this bread using 2 cups of water in the rye meal sourdough mixture. I live in San Diego, CA so may need more hydration than some bakers in other areas. I needed 2 cups of water for the Vollkornbrot as well. That recipe by the way lists the water required for the sourdough as 5/8 cup; it should undoubtedly be 1 and 5/8 cups. I had a nice rise in my Pullman pan from France and a soft crust with moist crumb.

Thank you, David! I was happy to find your posts on this topic. My husband is from Germany and for years I have been searching to no avail for correct German bread recipes. Even German baking books gave no clue, perhaps because there is no need for Germans and many other Europeans to bake their own bread! At long last Jeffrey Hamelman has given us the key. Now I need to figure out how to duplicate the Brötchen, with their light and tender crumb regardless of the type of grain; and their crisp shell, in my home oven with convection feature and baking stone. Trader Joe's here for too brief a time stocked spelt Brötchen in its freezers, disguised as "Dinner Rolls". The German bread-appreciating public did not discover them and they did not sell.

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